2022 ISSBD Awardee’s Spotlight: Interview with Dr. Laura Taylor

Since 2004, ISSBD has recognized excellence in behavioural development, presenting awards at Biennial Meetings. In this spotlight, we highlight Dr Laura Taylor, recipient of the 2022 ISSBD Award for Young Scientists Award.

Please briefly introduce yourself and share your current position and affiliation.

My name is Doctor Laura Kendy Taylor, and I am an associate professor at the University College Dublin School of Psychology. I have been a member of ISSBD for four years now.

How did receiving the ISSBD Award (YSA, etc) impact your career and research in Behavioral Development?

One concrete implication is that after I received the award, I was promoted from assistant to associate professor. So, the external and international recognition does help. Other developments that have occurred since then are that I have been recognized by other associations and now hold a leadership position, for example, on the governing council of the Society for Research and Child Development (SRCD). All these forms of recognition help to highlight your scholarship both to other associations and to your own institution.

What were your previous research programs, and how are they contributing that led to this recognition

The key area of my research focuses on how the youth are both affected by and can be impacted in their societies in situations like political conflict or adversity. One of the key things that this award recognized was my focus on constructive youth agency settings. So traditionally, the media and academics tend to focus when we talk about youth and political violence, they tend to focus either on kind of youth as victims, so the trauma and the mental health impact, or they focus on kind of youth as perpetrators, so child soldiers or kind of like adolescent aggression in ongoing conflict settings.

My work tries to focus on constructive agency, such as civic engagement, nonviolent resistance, voting, and those forms of active participation, as well as the under-noticed and under-measured forms of civic engagement, like organizing around protests. So, for example, we know young women may be less likely to be at the forefront of demonstrations in some societies, but they may be the ones organizing and making sure that other folks know about it.

Have you observed any specific developments or changes in the field influenced by your research?

Yes, I think so. I mean, part of it is a convergence, where there’s an increased interest in civic engagement broadly in normative contexts. The other part is that there’s growing attention and awareness. And partly because funding, I mean, there was always attention and awareness, but we didn’t have the money to do research in situations of political conflict, and so I think now there’s a convergence of both that kind of positive youth engagement over the last decade, as well as increasing attention to the scientific need to study young people in situations of political strife.

Can you share any experiences or successes of your graduate students and postdoctoral fellows?

That’s a great question. And in particular, the award helps with networking and awareness. So, for example, one of my PhD students is now organizing a symposium and has proposed a symposium for the future ISSBD conference. One of my postdocs has also been invited to be at a symposium in what’s called the Society for Research on Adolescents.

Another one, again, for the European Association for Research in Adolescents. And so this kind of recognition for the lab approach. So, it’s not just, I mean, obviously, it was given to me, but most of my research comes through what we call our helping kids lab. That recognition then helps the postgrads and postdocs network with others as well. So it’s fun to see them have the opportunity to travel to be on these different panels and make those connections with other senior researchers.

What advice would you give to potential nominees regarding the ISSBD Awards nomination process?

My first piece of advice is don’t be shy. So many of us have self-doubt and think it’s not me or what we call imposter syndrome. And it’s worth just putting yourself forward.

The other advice I have is to keep not being shy. So, for example, in another society, I didn’t win an award. And they said, you know, look, just apply next year, you probably and I got the following year, you know, so there are times where maybe for whatever reason, there’s an emphasis on a certain type of research or a certain region and just keep putting yourself out there. A common piece of advice is that for every ten applications, you might win one. So if you look at someone’s Curriculum Vitae and you see they’ve won an award, imagine they might have applied for ten other awards and nine of those they did not receive.

So, we don’t put our failures out in public in the same way. The third advice is to look for mentors outside of your lab or your field, depending on how different universities are set up. I think what was super helpful in my case was that there was a senior scholar who I know, who wasn’t my mentor, who I’ve never done research with, who was willing to kind of support my nomination. And broader appeal, like showing that other people who are not directly invested in your future support you, is really important.

And so for that, I would offer up if there’s someone who wants a nomination. Feel free to ask me, and I’ll work with you to put together a nomination. And so that’s a continuing of not being shy, but kind of that idea of having support that’s broader than your kind of direct supervisor or immediate lab environment, I think is really helpful, especially for it’s helpful for everyone.

Can you share a memorable experience or connection made through ISSBD that has been significant for you?

Tina Malti, who is the current president, has been someone who I have idolized academically. And so, was it last year? Or two years ago when the last conference was. She actually gave the awards, and I was very honoured to receive them. Then she and I had coffee and continued to try to find ways to collaborate in research, and her postdocs and my postdocs are now together for a symposium.

What are your current or upcoming research interests and projects in Behavioral Development?

So yeah. I am fortunate to have received funding from the Irish Research Council, and it’s allowing our team and me to participate in youth peace-building and different conflict settings. So active conflict is real, and a recent post-conflict setting of Colombia, the post-conflict setting of one generation North Ireland and then Switzerland, which is divided by language but has never had an active conflict. By looking at these cases, we are interested in understanding what might be unique to youth peace-building based on contextual factors and what might be more universal and shared across different settings. Generational peace will definitely be a project I’ll be sharing over the next four years. We just finished our first qualitative data and are now moving to the quantitative part. So I’m very much looking forward to that.

How do you typically unwind or relax after a busy day or week of work?

I am a big baker. I love to bake. And so even back at, like, my undergrad days, everyone would know if I had a paper coming up or a test because I would be baking cookies. You know, like it’s how I release my stress. I also now do a lot of quantitative analysis.

And for those who do that, it takes models forever to run. And sometimes you, and so now I reward myself with like jellies or like gummy bears when the model converges. And I’m like, yeah, so definitely like sugar, sweets, and baking is how I relax.

I have actually just promised somebody at my boys’ school, like the six-year-old school, they would help me with something. I was like, I’ll bake you cookies tomorrow. Like, you know, definitely like how I relax.